


Wringer

by DustyForgotten



Category: Double Arrhythmia, Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Episode VII: The Force Awakens (2015), Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Alternate Universe, Animal Death, M/M, Mental Health Issues, Mercy Killing, Violent Thoughts, myspace au
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-24
Updated: 2018-05-24
Packaged: 2019-05-13 04:29:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 744
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14742002
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/DustyForgotten/pseuds/DustyForgotten
Summary: Have you ever seen something die?





	Wringer

**Author's Note:**

> I am aware [2.0](https://double-arrhythmia.tumblr.com) is a thing, and I'm hype Horatio can tell the story as intended. That said, I'll be over here with a vivisection-happy boy, working through some shit like it's 2007.

Impending rain looms overhead, warning winds rattling needles free from the pines, like midwinter icicles. Like knives. Wildlife has bedded down, silent all but the insects that don’t understand what’s coming— and that which cannot move.

He can see feathery fur waving even from the trail, is so attuned to the sight of it he’s parked in too many driveways and trudged through gutters and roadside refuse so often his ankle boots always reek of mud. As if anyone would smell his shoes.

Well, Kylo might. Kylo follows him through the woods, twittering on about internet acquaintances and making hardly veiled innuendo that will never gain him any ground in present company, but he has yet to give up on. Hux wordlessly turns to trek through underbrush, and Kylo flippantly follows. He squats beside the thing, and frowns.

“I mean, her MySpace name doesn’t even rhyme— ew, is it dead?”

Hux takes a patent leather case from his messenger bag, and a pair of latex gloves from that. “Not yet.”

The squirrel still breathes, no matter how laboured. It had no visible wounds— at least, not from this angle. When Hux reaches out with a gloved finger and manipulates the head out from under the animal, it begins to chirp. Kylo leans in with all his awkward lank, observing the rodent twitch weakly. “… What’s it doing?”

He resists the urge to stroke through tawny fur, hand in tremors above the body as it blinks, slow, still conscious. “Begging to die.”

“It probably has like, rabies or something,” Kylo hedges, helplessly. Hux could cut it open with that scalpel in his case, locate the problem among its insides— but he couldn’t fix it. He could slot his scalpel into the thorax, crush its skull, slit the throat. He could end it. “Come on, let’s just go.”

Hux studies Kylo for a moment, and the look on his face implies Hux’s is doing something upsetting again. “Choosing to do nothing is still a choice.”

“Just leave it, Hux. There’s nothing we can do.”

The whole ribcage fits in the palm of his hand, heaving the last of its life as he shifts it to the back. “I could try.”

He doesn’t wince, or balk, just eyes the trail uncomfortably. They’re alone out here— for now, at least. “… Will you be okay?”

“I don’t care if it bites me.” His cat does regularly, but never so detrimentally as the damage from his own, rounded nails.

“No, I mean like…” Fried straight hair covers his eyes, but he chews nervously on a piercing. “Are you sure?”

He doesn’t quite suppress the impulse and touches the soft underside while the squirrel sings, so scared. “I’ve put animals out of their misery before.” Normally he has a hunting rifle and buck knife to help with that. He’s seen death, and viscera, and his mind can’t get much worse, anyway.

“Oh,” Kylo agrees, in a way that sounds suspiciously amenable, “okay.”

Hux doesn’t risk hesitancy as he wraps trembling fingers around the neck, squeezing until it is silent, until the twitches cease, until his knuckles ache, until his whole body shudders with exertion. He can’t hear over the shriek of the blood pressure in his brain, and he must have missed something said, because purple nails and pony beads tug at his wrist. Hux tears off his gloves; he crushed the windpipe.

He blinks hard, successively, resorts to remove his glasses and grind a knuckle into the tear duct. When he replaces the glasses, Kylo’s head is tilted, curiously, staring at his eyes even while his hands tremble and flex. “What?” Hux snaps.

“Don’t you wanna play with it?”

He can’t seem to stop blinking now, eyeing shifting between pines as they rumble with the wind. Hux scrunches his face, hopes the trembling between his brows and below his eyes will settle.

“You always play with dead things. You know, look at the insides and take out the bones and stuff. You always do that, right?”

Kylo just watched him kill a small animal, and doesn’t appear to be the slightest bit concerned for his sanity.

Maybe Hux shouldn’t worry so much.

“I’m not getting caught in the rain,” he says instead. The words spur himself to move: Hux stands, and dusts the dirt from his knees, which only serves to put it on his palms. He heads back for the trail, and Kylo, unconcerned, trots along after.

Distantly, thunder rolls.


End file.
